A personal computer usually includes a loudspeaker and audio circuitry for generating sounds in conjunction with programs as they are run. Speech or music may be simulated or played from a digital recording. A growing application for computers is in conferencing, where several users may be connected together in a network, each with a terminal. Each screen may contain representations of the users such as icons, photographic representations, or freeze-frame or even real-time video pictures. Each user will generally have a particular region of the screen devoted to him, with the program typically running under a windows environment.
It is found that there is enhancement of a user interface if the sound associated with a window appears to emanate from the position of the window. The invention provides a means of achieving this and in more general terms provides a means of generating sound which is spatially associated with the position of the image of the sound source on the screen. It will be seen that such a facility has application in various types of computer displays including games with moving sound sources and video type displays